Friday, December 09, 2011

Pa-Ord Noodle: Fiery and friendly Thai tastes

Chinese broccoli and crispy pork

Pa-Ord Noodle at lunchtime has to be one of the friendliest restaurants I've eaten at in a long time. After I awkwardly attempted to order my boat noodles "pet ma," which I thought meant "sort of" spicy, a table of four young women giggled at my pitiful attempt and insisted I stick with what the server described as "medium." They taught me the word for medium, which I've now forgotten, but it turned out to be the right call as Pa-Ord's medium was just about right -- almost as spicy as I wanted, though a bit more than Kathy preferred. Then an older Thai couple started talking to us about Bangkok, since a large photo on the wall pictures the floating market with Pa-Ord's owner Lawan Bhanduram working on one of the boats.
Bhanduram previously ran Ord Noodle on Hollywood Blvd., which like nearby Sapp was known for its boat noodles.

Boat noodles

I ate Thai food for several decades before attempting boat noodles,
scared off by ingredients like beef blood, tripe, liver, and mysterious
rubbery beef balls. When I finally tried the murkily delicious broth a
few years ago, I was quickly won over by the combination of flavors like
star anise, five spice powder and kaffir lime melding with strips of
beef, chiles and noodles. (For a great recipe and description of the
soup, see this post from Eat Drink + Be Merry).
It turns out there's nothing scary about boat noodles, though I didn't
actually eat the bits of liver that helped give a nice funk to the
broth. At Pa-Ord, there's a choice of four types of noodles for the
soups: egg noodles, wide rice noodles, thin rice noodles and even
thinner rice noodles. There's also Tom-Yum soup with noodles, duck noodle soup and several other types like seafood soup and pork offal soup. The stir-fried noodle dishes like drunken noodles are fairly standard -- Pa-Ord's strength is mostly in the soups, though the papaya salad comes recommended.
But don't forget your vegetables. Fortunately, at Pa-Ord, the Chinese broccoli comes topped with hefty hunks of impossibly crispy pork skin. Hopefully you will not have just come from a cholesterol test at Kaiser down the street, and you will be able to carefully savor how well each cube's fatty crunch plays off the slightly bitter, somewhat spicy greens.